Tag Archives: Voter’s Voice

Like Minded People – an encore

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First posted in July of 2012 – the memories are positive, and the sentiment is still true.

Imagine a busload of people who like Car Talk, get the jokes on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and know the difference between Michael Feldman and Michael Perry.* This is a bus trip of people who are polite to each other, make friends readily, and enjoy intelligent conversation about issues that matter to you, er, them. Amigo and I took just such a trip a few summers ago. Sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio, the trip goes to tiny Bayfield, WI, where the group takes in a show at the Big Top Chautauqua.

A summer City Council meeting seemed like it was ripe for conflict. People attended to speak for the trees, speak for the right to raise urban chickens, and support an up and coming project that will turn a former country club and golf course into a large community garden. Despite the differing opinions, all in attendance had something in common.

Last, but never least, I attended two meetings at the local Organizing for America office. One was simply a monthly update of the citywide group, and the second a training in canvassing techniques for the upcoming campaign kick-off weekend.

What do these three have in common? I’ll give you a moment to think. Take a look at the OFA office windows from summer 2012 while you’re contemplating.

How can you resist? Pose with the cardboard cut-outs!

Remember the question? I asked you to consider what these three examples might share in common. It’s the people.

In each example, you’ll see a group of like-minded people. The Public Radio bus trip was thoroughly enjoyable because of the camaraderie. In the second example, all three issues had to do with sustainability and the city environment. In the third, all of the meeting attendees were motivated to help re-elect the President of the United States to a second term.

Seeking out like-minded people is one way to stay calm and focused during difficult times. We share experiences, we share attitudes, and we share priorities. These groups will meet again, I’m sure. Trees, chickens, Public Radio, and elections are topics that inspire passion. Finding focus for a passion can lead to making a difference in the world.

Go ahead, readers. Find like-minded people. Talk. Then come back here and tell me: what will you do to make a difference?

Michael Feldman hosts a Saturday morning show on WPR called Whadya Know?. Michael Perry hosts Big Tent Radio on Saturday nights. Good enough?They’re both comics, hosts, and fascinating people. 

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Elvis Endorses –

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I almost feel like I should jump into Grandma Daisy voice for this post, but it’s not necessary. I’m old enough to remember and explain it myself.

It was a long, dark, and stormy campaign. We Wisconsinites were getting tired of the negative ads, the name calling, the nasty back and forth in the race for one of our Senate seats. In fact, I don’t remember the two candidates who were throwing their campaign war chests into battle. I just remember wishing I had a television that had a newfangled remote control with MUTE button.

Then there was Russ Feingold. He wasn’t wealthy. His supporters were the everyday middle class folk who could donate small amounts. Russ did have a major advantage: a sense of humor.

Feingold’s commercials were made with a home video camera. His script was largely improvised – opening a closet door and saying, “Look, no skeletons” was one highlight. While the front runners tore each other to pieces, Russ found an endorsement that people would remember. He held up a tabloid style newspaper that proclaimed “Elvis Endorses Feingold.”

I remember when Russ Feingold was the only member of the Senate to actually read hte Patriot Act – and the only Senator to vote against it.

I remember when Russ Feingold created a truly bipartisan bill with none other than Republican John McCain. When someone refers to McCain-Feingold, people still recognize the names behind bipartisan campaign finance reform. If you doubt me, ask Alex Trebek.

Who is Russ Feingold, of course.

Who is Russ Feingold, of course.

Russ is a man of integrity and intelligence. If he’d go on Jeopardy himself, I predict a win. In fact, I look forward to helping him win in November of 2016. Blue suede shoes or basic Oxfords, Senator Feingold is on his way back to Washington.

 

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Replace the Debates with a Jeopardy Tournament

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I am a faithful fan of Jeopardy. After concluding a Teachers’ Tournament, Alex Trebek mentioned that based on his observations, the country’s children are in good hands.

Consider the following. Instead of a Teachers’ Tournament, Alex Trebek would host a gathering of the great, er, the leaders of several states. A while back, I imagined Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and — well, I left the third spot open for speculation.

Let’s look instead at the “debates” between the multitudes otherwise known as the Republican candidates for president in 2016. How would they stand up to Alex Trebek? How would Alex handle them?

Alex Trebek: Welcome to Jeopardy’s Potential Leaders on the Right Tournament. Our contestants today are Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, and of course Donald Trump. Let’s look at the categories for the regular Jeopardy round. (beeping sound effect as the board blinks on) Coffee or Tea Party, Potent Quotables, Blood is Thicker Than Water, Dancing Around the Issues, Washington Outsiders, and Immigration. Donald, let’s begin.  

Trump: I’ll take Potent Quotables for 200, Alex.

Alex: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?” Donald, you must ring in before I can ask for your answer.

Trump: I didn’t mean that. I meant her persona, not her looks.

Alex: You didn’t ring in, Donald! Carly.

Fiorina: Who is – every woman in the country heard what Donald Trump said.

Alex: correct for $200. Carly, choose again.

Fiorina: Blood is Thicker than Water for 400, Alex.

Alex: We sent troops to this location based on faulty intelligence. Jeb.

Bush: That was – I mean, what is my brother’s war in Iraq.

Trump: Who cares?! Show some spunk!

Alex (turns to director): Cut! We can’t go on like this. Donald, you must play by the rules.

Trump: I make my own rules! You know how reporters keep calling me a schoolyard bully? Well, they’re right! I do things my way! I tell you, I wouldn’t hire Carly to run any one of my (audio shuts off, followed by video going black).

Readers, you get the idea. Today’s children are in good hands for now. But if the narrow and uber-conservative right get their way, none of will be in good hands. The Tea Party folk play as though they make their own rules. If we want representation of the people, by the people, and for the people to remain, it’ll take more than a game. Stay informed, and stay active.

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Fortunately, Unfortunately

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Andy Borowitz, satirist for the New Yorker, posted this on Facebook last Saturday.

You can’t complain about a week in which the Pope came and Scott Walker and John Boehner left.

I beg to differ – slightly. Scott Walker may have ducked out of the national scene, but he’s back in Wisconsin to wreak whatever havoc he can. The Pope? I’m glad the Catholic faithful have a leader that is open-minded and considers serving the poor a priority. However, I am not and have never been Catholic, and I see their view of women as negative and demeaning. Boehner? Let’s see how he does as lobbyist. He understands Congress and loves power, so I’m sure he will still support the same conservative issues he pushed while in office.

Deep breath. In, out.

Fortunately, Walker left the race for president. Unfortunately, he’s now refocused on his ridiculously conservative agenda in my state.

Fortunately, Boehner left his post as Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, there’s still a Republican majority in the house.

Fortunately, the Pope is visiting the United States and spreading his word of peace and care for the less fortunate. Unfortunately, women still play a second class role in his church.

Back to the top – the issue that worries me the most. What will Walker do next? Don’t answer that; I’m really, really afraid to find out.

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Hillary – it’s complicated.

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Facebook offers choices for indicating relationship status. Married, single, in a relationship, or “It’s complicated.”

Complicated – that’s how I feel about Hillary Clinton running for president.

I’ve admired Hillary since she spoke up on 60 Minutes and refused to stay home, bake cookies, host teas, and be the little woman standing by her man.

I read her first memoir – I didn’t bother to read Bill’s.

I mourned her loss in the primaries of 2008. I had to grieve the fact that her party was over before I could support Barack Obama. And support him I did, with my vote and my blog and my volunteer time.

Now I’m feeling very conflicted. Hillary has all the traits I value in a leader. She’s intelligent, strong, experienced, knowledgeable, and the list could go on and on. Hillary Clinton would be an excellent president of the United States.

The trouble is this: Hillary may not be the best candidate.

She has baggage. Lots of baggage. Benghazi. Email-gate. Her age and gender (damn, I wish those didn’t matter). Her outspokenness.

I’m really stuck, people. Bernie Sanders may be the stronger candidate. He supports the issues that matter to me. He is intelligent, strong, knowledgeable, and more. He doesn’t have the experience that Hillary does, but neither does he have the baggage. And yet –

To leave Hillary’s side after following her through thick and thin and Monica Lewinsky feels disloyal. I feel like leaving her now is like kicking her when she’s down – at least when her polls are down. It’s a paradox, that’s what it is.

I didn’t aim to write a review for Joanne Cronrath Bamberger’s book Love Her, Lover Her Not: The Hillary Paradox. Indeed, I haven’t ordered my copy – yet. But I am definitely feeling that paradox. I admire Hillary Clinton to the moon and back, but I can’t quite put my vote in her corner – yet. She would be a great president. I have no doubt of that. But first, she has to be electable. And no matter how high her pedestal in my opinion, I’m not sure she can will the general election.

And that, my friends, is my dilemma.

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Knowledge, What a Concept

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“It’s hard to keep up with how much the guy doesn’t know.” We’d just seen another example of GOP presidential candidate wannabe Scott Walker sticking his foot in his mouth – again.

It’s also hard to keep up with his idiotic statements and unrealistic plans.

He proposes building a border wall – at the Canadian border.

He has a to-do list for wreaking havoc on his mythical “first day in office” that includes:

  • Terminate the Iran negotiation deal.
  • Reinstate sanctions on Iran.
  • Repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  • Eliminate federal employees’ unions.
  • End President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.

In his speeches, Walker keeps pointing to Reagan’s firing air traffic controllers on strike in 1981 as an example of strong foreign policy. Seriously? Did busting the union really end the Cold War? I don’t remember it that way. Anyone else?

Walker has also shown he needs a script in order to speak clearly. One foreign policy talk made no sense: “You look at Egypt, probably the best relationship we’ve had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly important.” Did he really imply that Egypt is in Israel? Did he use “Israel” as a synonym for the Middle East region, perhaps? Was it his grammar or his lack of knowledge that made him appear confused? Never mind. Don’t answer that. I’m not sure I want to know.

 

As it stands today, Walker needs to study. He needs to surround himself with educated advisers that  understand the world outside of Wisconsin. And yet, Walker didn’t finish his bachelor’s degree. He doesn’t really know how to study. As for advisers, he is more likely to listen to ALEC and the Koch brothers than he is a truly knowledgeable foreign policy analyst.

And any poor analyst or adviser will have to meet a major challenge: the challenge of keeping up with what Walker still doesn’t know.

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Plenty Ladylike

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Claire McGaskill, Senator from Missouri, has released her memoir, Plenty Ladylike. The title reminds me of a post from September 2012. Senator McGaskill still represents the state of Missouri, and Todd Akin? Anyone know where he is now? Never mind, don’t answer that. Just look back a few years and ponder the title of her book.

Todd Akin, the idiot, er, candidate from Missouri who claimed women can “shut that whole thing down” when raped, has done it again. He opened his mouth yet one more time and showed that he views females to be inferior beings.

He complained that his opponent, Claire McCaskill, “came out swinging” and seemed “aggressive” in their debate. This threw him a little, took him unawares. He thought he remembered McCaskill in her 2006 campaign being “…very much sort of ladylike.” Apparently he didn’t expect the little female to be strong competition to an old-fashioned guy like him. If you ask me, he didn’t expect McCaskill to be strong, period.

Remember the movie Field of Dreams? Annie Kinsella accuses an ultra-conservative PTA mom of having lived through two 1950s and jumping straight into the 1970s without ever experiencing the peace, love, rock and roll of the 60s. Akin is stuck in the past somewhere, too, in an unrealistic vision with unrealistic plastic people.

When a candidate is strong, that’s good. If a candidate has enough knowledge and skill and strength to come out swinging in a political debate, that scores points in the candidates favor.

Male or female, I want my senator to be intelligent, articulate, and yes, strong. Male or female, that legislator needs to be able to come out swinging when it’s necessary. Ladylike? I’d rather see someone with strength, knowledge, and ability to work in a team.

Ladylike? I think we’re looking for womanly, myself. No apologies for being female, and no tolerance for inaccuracy and idiocy and condescension.

Hm. That sounds a lot like Tammy Baldwin for Wisconsin as well as Claire McCaskill for Missouri. Come November 6, I know who deserves my vote.

I’m proud to say that both Tammy Baldwin and Claire McCaskill won their elections to serve in the U.S. Senate. I’m also looking forward to reading Senator McCaskill’s memoirs. As for Senator Baldwin – Tammy, when will your memoir be ready? I’m eager to read it!

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Teaching is Political.

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Today is the First Day of School in my district. In honor of this annual milestone and the people who make it happen, I offer the following: a memory from a local elementary school and the teachers who work their magic within the walls.

A long time ago, in a graduate class that was part of my Masters Degree program, we had a discussion of politics and teaching. One colleague said, “I just want to close the classroom door and teach.” She was serious; she didn’t like the distraction of political issues and conflicts.

Like it or not, distraction or otherwise, teaching is political. Education is a political field. But even so, we teachers have to be cautious. We can’t appear to be partisan in class. We are discouraged from using any print matter from campaigns, even if we cover both major parties in the election.

Beyond that, new policies came out in 2011 and 2012. Educators and other public workers became vocal and active when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his Republican buddies proposed the infamous Act 10, which stripped most public employees of bargaining rights.

Meanwhile, we taught. And we talked – quietly among ourselves. We had to be careful because of the strict policies about political involvement. We could park a car with a political bumper sticker in the school lots. We were allowed to wear a campaign button on our jackets on the way in and out of school. We could volunteer on our own time or donate money to a candidate of our choice, but we couldn’t discuss it during school hours or use school equipment (copiers or computers) for political purposes. That meant no  emails, no printing or copying of news articles, and no reading of blogs on company computers, even after hours.

We managed, though. We collaborated and shared news during our lunches and our prep periods. We walked out the door together and talked them. We updated each other before the bell rang in the morning and after the kids left in the afternoon. We teachers, we who had dedicated our lives to making a difference, turned political: we stood up for ourselves and said that we mattered.

My colleague who had wanted to “close the classroom door and teach” became active in her own way. She couldn’t discuss issues, but she made sure her students had a front row seat on election day by acting as welcome crews, opening and holding doors as voters came into the poll located in their school building. She didn’t talk about specific candidates, but she made sure her students knew that voting was important. By having her students interact with voters, if only in a small way, she sent a clear message: This is what democracy looks like.

And as the presidential election of 2016 looms, I’m quietly installing a sticker in my minivan’s window announcing my support for Emily’s List. If anyone wonders what Emily’s List might be, and that person looks it up, I’ve accomplished a little quiet political action of my own.

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Walker’s Education Oopses

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He can’t quite get his stories straight, this Walker guy, at least when it comes to education. Wisconsin Governor Scottie Walker wants to move on to a bigger, more important job out East, but on the road to the nomination he seeks, he’s having trouble getting his facts to line up.

Early in his tenure (pun intended), Governor Walker told the story of a teacher who had won the state’s Teacher of the Year award only to be laid off due to low seniority at the end of the school year. According to Walker, this teacher was a prime example of why his union-busting law, Act 10, was so important.

Except – he was wrong. The teacher to whom he referred had not, after all, won Wisconsin’s Teacher of the Year Award. She had won an award – an award for first year teachers of English Language Arts, an award for which she’d nominated herself. Walker didn’t do his homework. He gave her an award she hadn’t earned.

The real Outstanding Teacher of the Year in Wisconsin let him have it in an open letter online. The teacher he talked about (over and over, as though it were part of a script) asked him to stop. She didn’t want to be his poster child for Act 10. She didn’t agree with his policies, and singling her out as special made her feel awkward and distracted her from teaching.

Now he’s done it again. Walker’s educational “reforms” have been controversial, to say the least. Reporters asked him for someone influential, someone to whom he could turn for support and advice. He named former Milwaukee School District superintendent turned Marquette University education professor Howard Fuller. Fuller, Walker said, is someone he consults often and is the kind of person he’d like to have in his cabinet.

Except – that doesn’t make sense. Walker consults him often? Fuller isn’t even sure which opinions he and Walker share because he hasn’t talked to Walker in, his words, “a long time”. Fuller supports the Common Core academic standards. Walker says he wants to repeal them, but really? I don’t think Walker has a clue what the Common Core Standards really are. As for expanding the use of public voucher money for private schools, another program close to Walker’s heart, Fuller again disagrees. Fuller supported a limited voucher program in the early 1990s. When Walker announced his intent to raise the income limits and take the cap off the total number of children using vouchers to attend private schools, Fuller openly opposed the changes.

Walker might be more credible on the national stage if he got his stories straight. But how can he stay consistent when his stories are just that – stories? Based on a few random facts, perhaps, but his stories overall are closer to fiction.

Do the Common Core Standards ask students to differentiate between truth and fiction? Maybe the good governor needs to do some research of his own.

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Election Noir – the Walker Way

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It was a dark night in a city that likes to keep its secrets. No, wait, that’s Guy Noir, private eye, creation of Garrison Keillor. The story I’m about to tell took place in a city that used to be known for open doors and transparency of government. Used to be known, I said.

It was late at night and approaching a major holiday weekend when a new item was slipped into the massive state budget document soon to come to a vote in Wisconsin. This action, this insert of a new little piece, was done quietly. Delicately.

The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) added a policy item changing Wisconsin’s Open Records Law. They chose their timing carefully: late at night on July 2, the Thursday preceding a long holiday weekend. The Powers That Be on the JFC hoped that legislators would return to work refreshed and relaxed and completely unaware of the changes.

They were wrong. This being Wisconsin, the birthplace of progressive politics, the people found out.

The changes exempted legislative communications from the law; shut down public access to all records created in the process of drafting legislation (any rough drafts, emails, written analysis papers); and specified that the Legislature could freely exempt any record from disclosure simply by passing a rule or policy. (source: Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council) In a nutshell, legislators could keep under wraps anything they wish to hide.

In keeping with the shadowy tone of secrecy, no one on the JFC would admit to authoring or contributing to this outrageous action. Some even walked away from reporters rather than answer questions.

Let’s jump to the final chapter of the mystery. As word got out that the suggested changes had come from Governor Walker’s Office, the insertion was quietly deleted. No one knew for sure, but the scent trail led to the top, and the top wasn’t willing to risk the biennial budget to the very vocal opposition.

So, folks, Governor Presidential Wannabe Walker didn’t have to admit his role, if any, in a potential gut of Wisconsin’s Open Records Law. And therein lies the danger: whether Walker suggested the changes or not, his office climate allowed and even encouraged this kind of action.

Is this dark and sneaky atmosphere the kind of climate we want in the White House?  I’ll answer that: absolutely not.

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